Modern movement conservation: international principles and national policies in Great Britain and the United States of America
Download
Engel Purcell2017.docx (183.8Mb)
Engel Purcell2017.pdf (176.1Mb)
Date
2017-07-04Author
Engel Purcell, Caroline Marie
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
This thesis analyses the roles played by international, national, regional and local
organisations and discourses in the heritage valorisation and conservation of modernist
architecture – a process that has so far spanned some three decades. A leading role in this
narrative has been played by international conservation organisations, which have acted
as a unifying front for conservation advocacy and defined a conservation ideology that
integrates the principles of both the modern movement and the conservation movement.
Partly, this international emphasis has stemmed from the characteristics of the 20th
century Modern Movement itself, including its strong strain of cosmopolitanism, as well
as its still controversial reputation today at a local level. This initially gave the
proselytising of modernist conservation a somewhat elite, trans-national character,
exemplified by pioneering organisations such as DOCOMOMO. Yet the
‘internationalism’ of modernist conservation is only part of the story – for to establish
this innovative new strand of heritage on a more entrenched basis, the familiar, more
locally specific organisations and discourses that had supported previous phases of
conservation growth were also increasingly applied to ‘MoMo’ heritage. This ‘on the
ground’ involvement represented a convergence with more ‘traditional’ conservation
practices, both in advocacy and campaigning, and in the research-led documentation
required to document buildings’ significance and continued fitness for purpose. These
geographically-specific forces operate at both a national level and also a regional or even
local scale, as the thesis illustrates by the two national case studies of Great Britain and
the United States of America. Although both countries shared numerous cultural
similarities, especially the 19th century veneration of private property, the far more
emphatic 20th century turn towards state interventionism in Britain led to a strong
divergence regarding modernist heritage, both in the overall character of the modernist
architecture built in the two countries (far more ‘capitalistic’ in the US) and in the
approach to heritage conservation (more state-dominated in GB). In Great Britain,
following on from the comprehensive post-WWII government ‘listing’ programme, the
statutory heritage bodies – ‘regionally’ differentiated between England and Scotland -
have maintained their leading role in the conservation of modern movement heritage
through initiatives to identify buildings of significance, and powerful city planning
authorities have provided co-ordinated enforcement. In the US, on the other hand,
heritage protection has stayed faithful to its philanthropic roots and the onus of modern
movement conservation is left to voluntary advocacy groups who then must campaign to
have buildings protected piecemeal by local city or state preservation bodies.